That’s a question we don’t quite have the answer for just yet, but some big names are certainly paying attention to this area.

For instance, Volkswagen and IOTA are working alongside each other on a proof-of-concept protocol which will use IOTA’s Tangle system.

In fact, on second thoughts, many experts think that the answer to our original question is a definitive ‘yes.’
These experts expect there to be over 200 million ‘smart’ vehicles on the road by 2020, so it seems like autonomous cars might be the ‘present’, never mind the future.

This protocol was presented at the Cebit 2018 Expo in Germany earlier this month. The proof of concept has been designed to allow Volkswagen transfer software updates to their connected cars.

The technology behind Tangle is slightly different to blockchain; instead of ‘blocks’ and ‘mining’, a directed acrylic graph (DAG) is used as part of a foundation. Thus, its chains work all at once and topologically.

The German car manufacture plans on using TANGLE to wirelessly and securely work with data from its autonomous car line.

There are several reports circulating suggesting that IOTA has joined up with MOBI (Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative) and many experts expect them to join up with other big names in the motor industry too.

IOTA is quite busy at the moment, as they are also planning to launch a Tangle-powered digital identification system.

You will soon be able to store IOTA (MIOTA) on the Ledger hardware wallet!

The official IOTA wallet is currently the best option to store MIOTA; however, its usability and functionality have long been questionable at best, with many users frequently experiencing issues when sending, receiving, broadcasting and attaching transactions. In some cases, users have even been unable to retrieve their IOTA.

Navin Ramachandran IOTA

However, this is all likely to change very soon. We spoke with IOTA Foundation member Navin Ramachandran, who assures us that with the upcoming Trinity wallet and ledger support the team are confident they are about to deliver the most user friendly, secure wallet on the market.

1. Will IOTA support Ledger hardware wallets and, if so, when? Security is becoming paramount for investors due to phishing and exchanges that are unable to secure customers’ funds.

The Ledger team have recently revealed that IOTA support is on the roadmap. There are a team currently working on this and we are working with them to expedite the integration. Concurrently we have committed to supporting this integration, as soon as it is available, in the new Trinity wallet. The Trinity developers are already in contact.

2. How user friendly will the new wallet be? Lots of users are reporting problems with having to re-attach transactions several times.

The new Trinity wallet has been built from the ground up to be user friendly. This was my main aim for the project. We have tested this with over 400 users during alpha testing, and we will soon be moving into beta testing.

At beta we are confident, based on feedback, that it will be one of the best wallets in the crypto realm. But we are also currently working with an excellent designer to tweak the design to minimise user friction and maximise usability.

The challenge is always how this can be achieved in a decentralised manner but still allow for synchronisation between devices. We are working on some novel approaches together with the IOTA core developers, which we hope will bear fruit in the next few months.

3. A number of IOTA users have no confidence in the current wallet; they are stuck in limbo with no safe way to store their cryptocurrency. How are you solving this?

There’s been a lot of confusion around IOTA’s wallet, but it is important to keep in mind that when IOTA pioneered the next generation of distributed ledgers we made it clear that we had no intention of even creating a UI, as the main focus was on IoT. As demand for a GUI increased, we decided to give the community what they wanted, and we are confident that Trinity will deliver.

From Navin’s feedback it seems that the team are confident that the IoT fundamentals are functioning correctly in a tried and tested environment. In turn this allows them to now focus on and allocate more resources to user software/interaction, with the aim of developing confidence in this area.

Development in these areas is in full swing, with the Trinity wallet concentrating on squashing bugs. It is very likely that once the wallet hits beta testing, it will already be an extremely polished product. Given the problems users encounter with the current wallet, it is reassuring to see the IOTA team carrying out extensive testing and taking the community’s feedback very seriously.